HABITAT: Travess Smalley

Habitat is a new weekly series that visits with artists in their workspaces.

This week’s studio: Travess Smalley, Sunset Park. “Have you ever seen Reddit battlestations? I love looking at computer setups,” Smalley said as he crouched over the computer in his Sunset Park studio. The Virginia-born artist moved into the space about a year ago from his former studio in Union Square where, he regularly visited the Strand to peruse for art books. This is still a weekly ritual that helps inform his process, albeit a less convenient one now. Some of Smalley’s book recommendations: Perfume Area by Sydney Shen and Laurel Schwulst, Heroes: Mass Murder and Suicide by Franco “Bifo” Berardi, and Re-Collection: Art, New Media, and Social Memory by Richard Rinehard and Jon Ippolito.

“I also spend a whole lot of time searching for music.” Smalley said as a Pender Street Steppers mixtape played in the background. “I’m part of a few Facebook groups that post great tunes, and some other albums on repeat this summer in the studio are Contemplating Jazz by Hanna, Obey the Time by The Durutti Column, and Bluesmaster 2 by Guitar Roberts, to name a few.” In the slideshow below, Travess takes us around his studio and shares some details about how he works.

ALL PHOTOS: KATHERINE MCMAHON

“I’m usually sitting, I don’t know why I’m standing here.”

“Two Vector Weaves and a pillow. The pillow is for when people want to do studio visits in the morning. I wake up late and usually don’t get to my studio till noon. So after morning studio visits I usually lay on the couch for an hour or two with my phone five inches from my face.”

“I try to keep a large section of floor clear so that I can lay out drawings and prints on the ground to sort through and photograph. There are usually pieces of tape or Post-its littered on the ground from my editing process.”

“I have lots of billboard vinyl samples and photographic samples stored in tubes still. Might be time for a flat file.”

“I use my tables as short term storage—lots of stacks of print outs, stacks of books, sometimes I draw there, or I clear it off for projections and video games.”

“Tasteful table arrangements. I need more tables.”

“My inkjet and color laser printers and some art books that haven’t been brought home yet. I buy a lot of art books, mostly from Strand, and I keep the majority of them at home. My last studio was on Union Square so I spent a lot of time on the second floor of Strand looking at art books. It’s still a weekly ritual. Get an iced coffee, go to Strand for two hours, get a burrito and walk home.”

“Seltzer, granola bars, empty ink cartridges, and a box full of guitar demos from high school.”

“I try to do anything noxious near the windows, with fans, and with a mask on. In college I was coating a sculpture with enamel spray paint and different glosses in the high vent room. The filters in the room hadn’t been changed and were so clogged that the fumes just stayed in there with me. For the next few weeks my vision was blurry in my left eye and now I have an allergic reaction to the fumes.”

“My vinyl cutter and the box for a PC I built…both of which are broken right now.”

“Almost everything I make in the studio starts at 8.5' x 11' letter size.”

“I’ve been making single copy print-on-demand books a couple times a month for the past few years—they contain many of the projects I’ve been working on in the studio. It’s great to show people when they visit. Some of them are full of computer drawings, some are filled with scans, or installation photos, or artworks by other artists that I like.”